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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 16, 2002
CONTACTS:
Frances Gilliland, 961-8838
APCD
Alan Nakashima, 882-3616
Santa Barbara County Public Works, Solid Waste\
Green Award Winners Announced
Businesses Demonstrate Environmental Commitment
in Variety of Ways
SANTA BARBARA, CA -- The Green Award Consortium announced today winners of
the ninth annual Green Awards, which recognize Santa Barbara County businesses
and organizations for outstanding environmental efforts. "These five
companies are honored for their comprehensive efforts to protect the
environment," notes Mindy Norris, of Traffic Solutions. Norris adds,
"All of this year’s winners have reached beyond their traditional
business missions and developed unique, planet-friendly programs, such as green
manufacturing processes, proactive community education, and employee commuter
programs. We are pleased to recognize these important accomplishments."
The other consortium members are Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control
District, the Community Environmental Council, Santa Barbara County Water
Agency, and Santa Barbara County Public Works – Solid Waste and Utilities
Division.
The 2002 Green Award winners represent a wide range of business types and
their efforts to protect our environment include a wide range of activities: an
architectural firm that educates the public on sustainability; a large health
care system that developed a comprehensive rideshare program; a business that
built a state-of-the-art green building for its own operations; a small graduate
school where natural resource management is integrated into its every day
operations; and a high tech company that has dramatically reduced its use of
hazardous chemicals.
Honored this year with Green Awards are: Blackbird Architects (Santa
Barbara); Cottage Health System (Santa Barbara); Hayward Truss (Santa Maria);
Pacifica Graduate Institute (Carpinteria); and Seagate RSS LLC (Santa Maria).
The Green Award recognizes companies and organizations for voluntary
activities, above and beyond their primary missions that result in cleaner air
or water, less waste, less traffic, conservation of energy and natural
resources, or reduced use of hazardous materials. The awards are an annual
highlight of Pollution Prevention Week, celebrated nationally during the week of
September 16-22. Winners will be honored at a special awards luncheon Friday,
September 20.
Meet the Winners: A description of the winners with contact numbers follows.
Blackbird Architects
Ken Radtkey, 957-1315
Blackbird Architects in Santa Barbara has a number of on-going programs that
provide exceptional environmental benefits. Their recycling programs divert 75%
of office waste from the landfill. They encourage alternative transportation
through shared office vehicles, including scooters and bikes, and have bike
storage facilities and showers on site. Their office space uses 50% less energy
than a conventional office building due to use of ventilation and natural
lighting. Their office landscape uses native, drought-tolerant species to
conserve water and permeable and planted parking surfaces to minimize storm
water runoff. The firm has U.S. Green Building Council LEED (Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design) certified staff. Employees spend many volunteer
hours educating other architects, contractors and the public on green building
practices: they lecture on sustainability topics at colleges and universities;
they work on the Sustainability Project’s Green Building Guidelines and Parade
of Green Buildings; and they participate in other efforts, including the
Innovative Building Review Program, and the Community Environmental Council’s
Creekwatcher Program.
Cottage Health System
Janet O’Neill, 569-7347
Cottage Health System (CHS), the parent organization of the Santa Barbara
Cottage Hospital, Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital and Santa Ynez Valley Cottage
Hospital, has developed a well-rounded effort to protect the environment. The
Cottage Hospital Employee Suggestion System (CHESS) encourages employees to
submit suggestions for improving operations in ways that will save natural
resources and money, and suggestions have led to more efficient use of natural
gas and water. CHS also provides a comprehensive "Employee Commuter
Program" that offers: a prize drawing for employees who use alternative
means of transport at least eight times per month; half-price bus passes;
match-lists for carpooling; emergency rides home; and a pre-tax flexible
spending program for expenses on buses and vanpools. CHS employees participate
in a Recycling Task Force, which has developed the REACH program (Recycling
Encouraged at Cottage Hospitals…for a greener world). Recycling containers
have been placed throughout the facility, and nutrition workers recycle
materials left on cafeteria trays by patrons. The Children’s Center at CHS
uses the facility-wide recycling program to educate the children about the
importance of recycling.
Hayward Truss
Joel Goldstein, (831) 206-9999 or Rich Binsacca (208) 389-7827
Hayward Truss (now known as Hayward Building Systems) recently built a
50,000-square-foot component manufacturing facility in Santa Maria to meet the
U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED)
standards. The facility is a model of water, energy, and resource conservation,
and incorporates recycled materials and sustainable products.
Rainwater collected in underground cisterns is used for landscape irrigation.
Waterless urinals and low-flow faucets provide additional water savings. Natural
lighting and building features, such as window awnings and roof overhangs,
reduce thermal transfer and lower energy demands. The photovoltaic panels on the
roof provide more than enough electricity to power the building; surplus
electricity is put back on the power grid as energy credits. The parking lot
features permeable pavers that allow rainwater to filter down through the soil
and replenish the groundwater and on-site retention basins. Operations within
the plant are also environmentally friendly. Computer technology is used to
ensure precise cuts and optimize wood use, sustainably-forested timber can be
specified in the manufacturing of the SolarTruss™, and a recycling program
ensures that all wood waste is recycled into mulch or compost. In addition, the
facility has a heating system that uses heat exchangers that warm outside intake
air with exhaust hot air to reduce the use of natural gas.
Pacifica Graduate Institute
Jenny Benjamin, 969-3626 Extension 172
Pacifica Graduate Institute is a small graduate school for psychology and
mythological studies in Carpinteria that has incorporated natural resource
protection into its daily operations. The grounds of the campus are landscaped
with renewable, edible, native, and Mediterranean drought tolerant plants
maintained with drip and minispray systems to save water. In addition, trimmings
and prunings from the landscape are composted and reapplied to the landscape and
integrated pest management strategies are utilized to reduce the need for
hazardous chemicals. Pacifica Graduate Institute has an active program for the
recycling of paper, cardboard, aluminum, and plastic among other materials and
purchases recycled-content materials wherever possible. Energy conservation
practices are encouraged throughout the campus. Staff can have flexible
schedules and telecommute to reduce traffic demands in the area.
Seagate RSS LLC
Teresa Alarcio, 347-7006
Seagate Removable Storage Solutions (RSS) is a leading manufacturer of
computer tape drive and tape head products worldwide. RSS is headquartered in
Costa Mesa, CA, with offices in Penang, Malaysia and Irvine, Scotland, in
addition to its Santa Maria office. The company has an outstanding product
stewardship philosophy - they have gone beyond thinking of their products in
terms of "cradle to grave" to "cradle to cradle" which has
resulted in a large scale move toward a green manufacturing environment. In
Santa Maria, they have reduced the on-site usage and storage of hazardous
chemicals by 67% from January 2001 to April 2002. In addition, Seagate RSS LLC
is finalizing the implementation of a "return to vendor" program for
all chemicals samples received for trial use.
They have replaced solvents with water-based cleaners and use less toxic
alternatives wherever possible. Seagate purchases recycled content materials and
has an established solid waste reduction and recycling plan for such materials
as paper, cardboard, scrap metal, computers and their associated components,
spent production materials, hazardous materials, and wood. An internal
"Presidential Award" program encourages employees to make suggestions
for ways to reduce impact on the environment. Seagate also participates in a
Pacific Gas & Electric Company program to reduce energy use from lighting.
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